Lecture by Brian Hodges: "Without compassion there is no healthcare"

Lecture by Professor Brian Hodges Recipient of the Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education 2016.

The 21st century is already characterized by profound discussions about what health professionals are and should be. Unprecedented levels of burnout, depression and substance abuse among clinicians are coupled with growing demands for equitable, safe and compassionate care – the delivery of which is more often systems-based than under the control of individual clinicians.

Simultaneously the explosion of technological advances including computers that increasingly solve problems and display forms of empathy, challenges us to question what a health professional of the future will be.

This presentation argues that while healthcare will continue to be underpinned by cognitive skills and technical prowess, it is an anchor in humanism and compassion that will prove the value of the (human) health professional of the future.

Brian Hodges is Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. He will receive the award at Karolinska Institutet’s Professor Installation Ceremony in Stockholm on 13 October.